baltakatei

ｋ

Hear me out: pump the excess solar power from the sunny side of Earth via maser into space at a geostationary microwave mirror array that reflects and focuses power back at a ground station on the dark side of Earth.

Sounds like economics needs redefining.

Trying to categorize people into strict definitions for the purpose of determining their responsibilities without considering feedback from the people themselves about how they want to categorize themselves violates Kant’s categorical imperative, also known as Granny Weatherwax’s definition of sin as “when you treat people as things”:

“There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example.”

“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that—”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things . . .”

Even if the professor doesn’t provide them, you need to socialize around to find which frat or sorority has filing cabinets (or digital scans, I guess nowadays) of old exams. And if word gets around that you did well on tests, be prepared to be treated out and schmoozed by younger students to give them old exams and problem sets from your recently completed course. Unfortunately, studying for exams honestly (becoming educable in the subject by learning the principles) does not pay off unless the exam creator is creating problem sets from scratch. Perversely, with this degree-mill mentality of “learn the metric, not the material”, you should avoid new professors who are more likely to be creating their own teaching materials even though the whole point of academia is to create social connections with precious generations of researchers to push science and humanities forward.

Honestly, I wish there were less roundabout ways than exams to funnel those who are only interested in getting a certification from those genuinely interested in preserving and building our civilization’s knowledge.

I would hope at least 10% of what Windows would have charged goes to the upstream developers (e.g. Ubuntu, Debian, etc.).

Also, if you stick a stamp on it and mail it… straight to jail.

Be careful not to agree to the monthly membership if you decide to donate money to change.org since change.org makes it seem like you’re reconfirming a one-time donation when you’re actually going to charge you a recurring amount (and at least double dipping even if you cancel immediately).

Here in Vancouver, Washington, the city shuts down nearly all public park restrooms and water fountains for 6 months each winter. Ostensibly it is for avoiding freezing water pipes, but I’m fairly sure it’s to increase land values of old single family housing that tend to be where parks are located by giving police an excuse to kick out homeless.

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Spikes on benches, fees on library membership.

At some point, prolonged US tariffs against Taiwan make rule by China and expulsion of US military assets there politically acceptable. Same argument applies to Japan and the Philippines.

Most problems people have with Linux, I think, come from trying to be Linux power users from the start by performing very advanced techniques beyond their time and patience: dual booting multiple operating systems (so they don’t have to buy Linux-dedicated hardware), using any graphics card (the latest and greatest GPUs are all closed source and developers who work on Linux do so because they despise closed source), using the least expensive hardware (which are typically closed source and buggy with anything except Windows), and emulating Windows apps so they don’t have to learn new workflows or abandon their favorite games (technically, Proton with Steam allows Windows games like FFXIV to be played, but it’s a neverending journey to get it working and keeping it working.

If you switch to Linux, accept that for a smooth experience you’ll have to pay more than you would for a Windows machine (e.g. System76, Framework) And if you want graphics card support for your emulated Windows games on Steam, you’re going to have to use the specific flavor of Linux the manufacturer supports.

That said, if you value free/libre open source software, then making the switch from Windows is totally worth it.

Reminds me of a quote from Hogfather (1996):

Maybe someone said, hey, how’d you like to hunt this evil bastard of an eagle with his big sharp beak and great ripping talons, sort of thing, or how about instead you hunt this wren, which is basically about the size of a pea and goes “twit”? Go on, you choose.

Which website gave you those instructions? Name and shame.

Promise him eternal life if they let us freeze him in a cryonics facility and then let his loyalists maintain the freezer with his disembodied head in a jar figure out how to make him their God emperor or whatever.

Donate if you regularly use Syncthing. Help close the causal loop.

Oh Lordy.

Will Smith: “Can a dog compose a symphony or paint a great work of art?”

Incarcerated robot: “Can you?”

In a few centuries, provided we don’t nuke ourselves into squiggles in sandstone, I look forward to personhood being extended to our canine, feline, bovine, equine, avian, reptilian, marsupial slaves and neighbors. It seems absurd that homo Sapiens is the only species with interesting stories to tell.